Sunday, 14 June 2009

Summer fruit vanilla cake

This is a recipe that gives you options: you can leave the fruit out and have a lovely plain vanilla cake; you can vary the fruit depending on what’s in season; you can replace the fruit with something else – chocolate and nuts, perhaps? You can dress it up with whipped cream or buttercream; you can leave it whole or cut it through to make into a layer cake.

What I’m trying to communicate is that this is one of those staple recipes that every good baker should have in their armoury. I see it as the equivalent of that perfect pair of black trousers you can dress up or down depending on the occasion and they’ll always look good.

After seeing some beautiful blueberries and raspberries I decided to use them in my version of this cake. I love the colour combination of the purply-blue and red plus both fruits pack a punch which adds depth of flavour to the sponge.

The cake uses yoghurt which gives a denser –but not heavy - texture to the sponge. The vanilla syrup, drizzled over the cooling cake ensures that each bite of this cake will be succulent and fragrant with vanilla.

For the syrup:50g golden caster sugar50ml waterSeeds from half a vanilla pod

How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 160°C/fan oven 140°C/315°F/Gas mark 3.- Line the base and sides of a 20cm round springform tin with baking paper.- Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla until smooth and fluffy.- Beat in the eggs, one at a time, adding a little of the plain flour if the mixture starts to curdle.- Beat in the yoghurt.- Combine the two flours then very gently beat into the mixture. Stop as soon as the flour is combined.- Gently stir the fruit into the batter and ensure that it is distributed nicely throughout the batter.- Spoon into the prepared cake tin and bake for approximately 1 hour 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Mine took 1 hour 40 minutes.- Now make the syrup: heat all the ingredients in a saucepan and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Leave to cool.- Once the cake is out of the oven leave it to cool for 30 minutes before making holes right the way down (use a skewer) and pouring the syrup over. It’s best to do this a little at a time and wait for it to be absorbed rather than swamp the cake all at once.- Leave to cool completely then store in an airtight tin.- Serve with cream and fruit or however you wish.- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.- Eat.

This is one of those "I have to have a piece of this now!" cakes. Which gives me a marvelous excuse to make this for my weekly tea sweet, as I can't be without something to get me through the afternoon. :)

Question: What exactly is mixed spice? We have something called pumpkin pie spice, which usually includes cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, lovely for autumnal baking. Is mixed spice the same? Can you recommend something I could possibly create myself?

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About Me

So, the answer to the question you’re all asking: who am I? Well, a superhero never reveals their identity. I think it’s stated somewhere in the contract when you sign up for superhero-dom. Let’s just call me THE CAKED CRUSADER. By day (and night if I’m being honest) a mild-mannered City professional, but at weekends I become THE CAKED CRUSADER. Tirelessly fighting anti-cake propaganda and cake-related injustices – for SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, ALWAYS NEEDS CAKE (we’ll just skip over the fact that it’s usually me).

Batman’s got the batmobile, batcave etc. Superman does just great what with being able to fly and being really strong. Spiderman’s got that web thing going on. But I have better than them. For I have a credit card and could get one of these:

The purpose of my blog is simple – to spread the word that CAKE IS GOOD.Yes, it is calorific; that is why it tastes so nice.Yes, too much of it is bad for you; that’s what ‘too much’ means.Yes, we’re all told to eat healthily and we know that we should. But ask yourself this – and look very deeply into your soul before answering – when has a cup of tea and a carrot ever cheered you up? However, put that carrot into a cake and happiness will ensue. Quod erat demonstrandum – CAKE IS GOOD.

This site will catalogue cakes I have unleashed unto the world and my thoughts thereon.

By the way, I will never recommend how many portions you should get out of a cake because we’re all different. Plus, it will be very embarrassing when I say it serves 4 and you get 20 portions out of it.

WARNING: Too much time spent on this blog may cause hunger.

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About Me

I am a 40-something Chartered Accountant working in the square mile.
My main hobbies at the moment are baking, and setting the world record for the number of cake tins owned by one person.
I spend far too much time watching Spongebob Squarepants and would love to try a Krabby Patty...I know, I know - it's not real.